Obligation
by Newtinmpls
Summary: When her business partner goes missing, Tenesi Faryon decides it's up to her to find him. When she finds that he's been sacrificed, she doesn't stop seeking - because it takes more than mere death to deter a dunmer of House Telvanni. [slightly edited]
1. Chapter 1

_Authors Note: Player characters of the Elder Scrolls Online game are told that they are "vestiges" of their former selves, meaning (presumably) that our characters had entire lives of which they recall very little. We are also offered the opportunity to form alliances, even marriages with other characters. This latter seems very unrealistic, until you recall the former. _

**Standard disclaimer: I do not own any of the wondrous creations of Bethesda Softworks or Zenimax Online, however I certainly lay claim to misspellings, mistakes, tweaks, spells and characters of my own invention.**

**~~Just Business~~**

Tenesi Faryon managed to sleep through the screeching of the seagulls that had heralded dawn in North Beacon. Warned by the noise, even mostly asleep, she'd pulled the bed clothing higher as a protection against the coming brightness. Sometime after ten, she turned enough to let the protective coverlet she'd drawn up over her head to slip down. The early morning sun stabbed viscously into the dunmer's eyes.

"Nchow!" She waved her arms in the direction of the light, thankfully blocking it out for the moment. Holding her right hand up to ward off the brightness, she blinked rapidly, her crimson eyes watering.

A chittering cry of amusement greeted her from somewhere high up. Var was much more a morning person … well a morning entity … than she was. He was also fairly close, by the sound of it. Probably perched on one of the high backed chairs she recalled being by the table.

She grabbed one of the smaller pillows and threw it at the excessively cheerful daedric spirit.

There was a pause, a chitter of amusement, and then Nordic sounding cursing from somewhere outside and below. _Boethia's blood_. She must have thrown the damn thing out the window.

She sat up, glaring at her completely unrepentant familiar spirit. Van chose that moment to shift from scamp-shape to that of one of the oversized Morrowind mud crabs.

Slotly pointing his eyestalks, he made a point of gazing up and down at the bed clothing that was falling to her waist. It would have been much more offensive, or even meaningful, if they weren't such completely different species. Then he focused on a spot near her right shoulder and made a sensuous trill.

Glancing down she noted a mark from certain excessive celebrations she'd partaken in with her erstwhile business partner last night. Despite herself, she almost smiled. For an Altmer, Hikiro was fairly skillful.

And looking sharply out the window, she noted it had to be past ten in the morning. They had plans to discuss business over breakfast. In all her long association, Hikiro Ni Cemarie had never, not once in her experience with him, ever been more than ten minutes late.

"Where is he?" She demanded of Var.

The scamp-formed spirit gestured to the table, where a covered plate and a roll of parchment waited.

The plate held sweetmeats and an overly sugared sweet-roll. She wrinkled her nose. What was it with men? Everything here had sugar on it. As least he wasn't as bad as an Imperial. There was no sign of fresh fruit and no fish. And while she was thinking about it, everything here was cold, and could well have been set up last night.

She grabbed the scroll. It was Hikiro's angular handwriting.

_Tenesi, don't be angry, _

Her eyes narrowed. Nothing good ever started out with a statement like that.

_You remember Lilisdra, that sweet little bosmer girl? _

She rolled her eyes. Yes she remembered the s_weet little bosmer girl_. The wide green eyes, and the curly locks of red-gold hair. Tenesi recalled the youngster's nervous habit of twirling it around her left forefinger. Lilisdra's childhood friend had gone missing, and she feared and suspected foul play. Her family was not inclined to investigate the dissapearance of an orisimer. Tenesi suspected strongly their reaction was one of poorly-concealed releif. So with her wide eyes and sweet tears she'd taken a chance on an altmer who "looked friendly."

And Hikiro, Daedra take his soft spot where youngsters were concerned, had wanted to investigate. After all, the random disappearances of dissatisfied youngsters were so very likely to be assets in their researches negotiating mutually advantageous trade connections for their respective families.

_I'm going with her to check out a possible informant. She's afraid to go alone, and it's a bad part of town. I'll just keep an eye on things, keep her safe and be back before you know it. Just a quick errand – and in case I'm a bit late, I left you breakfast. The roll is from a Nordic recipe. It's quite good. I shouldn't be too late – and I promise to make it up to you. _

_Oh, and I talked to the proprietor of that jeweler in the market. I think that something with Obsidian, or perhaps ebony might be very lovely on your hand. _

_H_

She sat back on the bed and let herself fall back against the pillows, momentarily distracted from the bosmer by his romantic implication. What was he thinking? Rings? He'd mentioned Mara a time or two in the heat of passion, but she couldn't possibly take anything like that seriously.

Yes, they were reasonably compatible, on a lot of levels. Yes, she was … well she was fond of him. Quite fond. But they'd only known each other seventeen years; hardly any time at all in the lives of mer. Well she'd been aquainted with him for decades before that, but not well, not seriously.

There was more than just the two of them to consider. His family's reactions at the addition of a Dunmer, never mind a Telvanni to the clan, and the reaction of her family to not only a non-Telvanni, but a non-dunmer would certainly be more than enough to disrupt the trade agreements that they'd both worked to keep in fragile balance.

And where was he?

There _had_ been disappearances, that much was true. It was none of their business. The little Bosmer should have gone to the proper authorities. Or the family of the missing friend. Which was logical, so of course a child wouldn't think that way. Tenesi recalled the intensity in Lilisdra's expression when she used the term 'friend'. Okay a barely-mature bosmer in the first heat of romantic passion. Not a recipie for logical thought.

Tenesi rubbed her temples. She should have known Hikiro was going to do something foolish. It wouldn't be the first time.

It was, however, the first time he was this late from one of his little errands.

A questioning chirr from Var pulled her out of her thoughts. He was back in scamp form, eyeing the breakfast, trying and entirely failing to look patient.

She smiled. His name was a variant on an old admeris word for "maw", and he had earned it. Gesturing to the plate, she said. "Go right ahead. I'll get something in the market, and then we'll find Hikiro and we'll pull his fat out of whatever fire it's ended up in this time."

**~~Dead End~~**

It took most of the morning to establish that Hikiro was nowhere in the city. No sign of him. No sign of Lilisdra. Or her little friend. Not a chirp or a chirr from Roo, Kohei's family spirit who usually accompanied him.

It wasn't until midafternoon that Tenesi realized that Var was worried.

Asking advice of daedra was a tricky thing at best; they were fierce literalists and they were hesitant to give more information than their daedric nobles would approve. Which usually meant giving out none.

Var admitted that at a couple of points around where they'd searched he had noted a very particular type of energies. Something about his body language gave her the right question.

"Is it necromantic energy?"

Var looked at her with wide eyes, and nodded. Once. His tail lashed back and forth, and he made a soft growl.

Time to up the game. She found a secluded corner in one of the gardens, settling herself into calmness. Opening up her inner eye, she called upon her ancestors.

_Guide me, elders. There is a place in this city where one violates the borders of the dead. _

The immidiacy of the response told her that they'd been waiting for the question, and that the answers were going to be important, and bad.

Six hours, too many bribes and a horse ride later (and the less said about that last the better) she was hidden in the hills near a cavern complex with a horrible reputation, and an almost palpable necromantic aura that grated her like a swarm of flesh-flies from Blackmarsh swamp.

Having no intention of actually confronting necromancers, she'd scouted around for a way in, or rather a way to their trash. Depending on what was being sought, the bodies might be valuable. She didn't think that this was the case. Her researches implied that it was the souls being sought and used, not the corpses.

Which was different. Probably bad. So maybe Hikiro had a point; that this was worth checking out. With proper preparation and plenty of backup, neither of which he'd had. He'd gotten into trouble.

Again.

Muttering curses under her breath, she swallowed her pride and used every cloying compliment and non-binding negotiation she could think of to get a shy stone atronach to widen one of the side tunnels just enough so that a very small dunmer and her companion could crawl along it.

The atronach was willing, but only because – and she wasn't sure that she completely understood the details – a water nymph was complaining that one of the outflows near this complex was now tainted. So her investigation could be seen as a favor for the nymph, which was good for the atronach. That meant that she wouldn't be obligated any further, which was good for her. It also meant that she was free to lie through her teeth to Hikiro about the amount of trouble he had caused her.

The bad news was that atronachs were apparently not at all susceptible to claustrophobia, and the so-called expansion was barely enough for her to crawl along. The fact that Var was not teasing her about this was a little disturbing. Shaped into a slender elongated thousand-legged crawler, he crept along the top of the tunnel, just above her. Occasionally one of his antennae would brush against her forehead. She resolved not to think about that.

The latter part of the several hour climb was cold and damp and the increasingly pungent smell warned her well in advance of what she was going to find.

Bodies.

What it hinted at but didn't tell her, couldn't tell her was how many of them.

She was trying not to breathe by the time she came out into an area that felt open, and cold, and smelled horribly, and the sound of the flies was enough to drown out anything else. Her night vision magic at first only revealed clouds of flies. Piled on the floor of the cavern were bloated bodies covered with masses of squirming maggots. The horrible collection was overflowing the bottom half of what had apparently started out as the inside of an enormous natural geode.

Bones at the bottom, covered by layers and layers of rotted, blackened flesh. Maggots and serpents and the smell, oh by all the Daedra the smell was so bad she choked up what little she'd managed to eat and could only be grateful it wasn't more.

And there, across from the allegedly-widened tunnel that had been opened for her, below a makeshift door, were the newest of the bodies. The door was slightly rounded, gleaming, probably made of some kind of chitin, and probably reinforced against smell. And she was staring fixedly at the door.

She wasn't looking down. She wasn't looking at the top of the pile, where the most recent additions sprawled bonelessly. A silver haired altmer wearing robes that shone with spidersilk. Even from a distance, Tenesi could make out silver locks of the overly tall, damnably foolish arrogant altmer who'd tried to rescue a child's lost friend. It wasn't necessarily him, she reminded herself. He was too far away to identify accurately.

"Van," she spoke softly. Emotionlessly. "The altmer – please take a closer look, and tell me how he died."

Clambering among the blue and violet crystals embedded in the wall, Van slowly moved across the side of the cavern. His tail lashed out, winding around an occasional larger crystal, keeping him steady. Halfway there, she could hear him starting to growl.

The hairs on the back of her neck started to prickle. This was not a teasing sound. This was not Van as the amusing companion she'd cherished since childhood. This was the low, hate-filled tone of an implacable angry daedra.

Staying perched on the wall, leaning out inches away from the bodies, Van's growl seemed to clear the clouds of flying bugs. As if even they dared not be so close to an angry daedra.

He reached out, at one point, apparently checking some part of Hikiro's armor. Or something? Tenesi couldn't quite tell. But the reduction in the mass of flies was enough that she got a good look at the fallen altmer.

It was him.

That wasn't a surprise. It wasn't.

All too soon Van was back, uncharacteristically silent. He held out his hand.

There was a pair of rings.

Adamantite and ebony in an intertwined pattern that could have been stylized vines. Or maybe thorns. The pattern as a whole was clearly a dedication to Mara. One was set with obsidian and the other with a star sapphire.

She clenched her fist and the edges of the stones bit into the skin of her palm. There was no way to bring the bodies back for burial, but that was not her custom anyway. "Time to go, Van."

She crouched, letting him ease past her farther down the passage.

Then carefully, for this spell was not meant to be cast from much of a distance, she called magikca and spoke the farewells of the Velothi. Let the waiting door be opened, let the ancestors welcome and guide their own.

Even as she whispered the litany, she could taste the bile of resentment. These mer and men had been sacrificed. Their spirits had not returned to the arms of their ancestors. They had been taken, diverted, used.

Across the cavern of bodies, the body of the silver-haired altmer disappeared into ash.

What has been diverted may be diverted again.

Of all the mer, none knew better than dunmer that souls were energy and could be currency on the daedric planes of existence. That being said, it was still possible to find a single coin in a hoard. Difficult, but possible. House Telvanni specialized in difficult. So to continue the coin metaphor – to get where it needed to be, that second coin would have to be spent or stolen the very same way.

"Van," she handed him the rings. "Hide these. Make sure it isn't possible for me to find them. It appears I have some planning to do."

**~~Altruism is Not a Dunmer Strength~~**

There had been no body matching the description of Lilisdra, the young bosmer. That argued that Hikiro had possibly been successful in saving her and his life had been the cost. Or at any rate his soul. Tenesi's eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

"Van," She said quietly. "We are going to go looking for someone."

Something soft nudged her hand, and she looked down to see a shaggy-furred, long eared hound. Van lifted his head and gave a breif howl that made her think of the wolves of Solthstien.

She raised an eyebrow.

He wagged his tail twice, and started off at a trot.

The trail wound around the edges of town, to a ragged campsite where she found the tousle-haired bosmer child sitting guard over an Orisimer who had to outweight Hikiro by at least double. At the dunmer's approach, the bosmer leaned forward and whispered something to her companion. He uncoiled himself so smoothly that Tenesi found herself certain that he'd already been awake.

The two faced her, calm. Weapons down.

The bosmer spoke first, her words calm, but her eyes wary.

"He said you would find me."

And that conversation led two days later to her preparation for her own capture and sale. Yes, this would involve her family more in the politics of the Altmeri than she would have liked. Yes, this would mean her own death. She was dunmer, and Telvanni. Death was not the end.

So she lay on a cold stone table, stripped of clothing and dignity. She watched the golden blade descend, and silently memorized the face of the mer who weilded it. She felt the tug of energies as the soul gem waited for her.

_Hikiro I will find you. _She swore to herself.

_And then I'll slap you for being such a softhearted idiot. _


	2. Chapter 2

_Authors Note: Sorry this may be a bit jumpy in terms of what happens when. I figured there will (eventually) be a thousand versions of fanfic describing the "adventures" one has in Cold Harbor. After all I'm working on one myself. With this particular character, my interest lies much more in what happens when she and Hiriko Ni Camire get back to Tamriel. This chapter is much shorter than I intended, partly because of changes in chapter 1, and partly because I"m just hitting a block. So I fhope posting this shortish bit will push me to answer "what happens next". _

**Standard disclaimer: I do not own any of the wondrous creations of Bethesda Softworks or Zenimax Online, however I certainly lay claim to misspellings, mistakes, tweaks, spells and characters of my own invention. **

**~~Sisterly Greetings~~**

Tenesi Faryon's eyes opened to mere slits as the door to her room at the Inn opened slowly and not quite silently. Her right hand was already under her pillow, so it was no great effort to wrap her hand around the hilt of one of her daggers. The prickle of heat and magicka told her it was Malwind; the blade she'd enchanted the fire glyph that Hikiro Camiere had made for her. For an altmer, he was reasonably skilled with enchanting.

He was quite skilled in other ways too. But she'd come back to considering that later.

Lying in bed, measuring the not-quite-silent footsteps that were slowly advancing on her bed, she ran through a list of possibilities in her head. A wisp of the subtle scent of fire petal and lilac narrowed it down to one: her youngest sister Hekellah Faryon.

Without actually opening them any further, Tenesi rolled her eyes. The foolish S'wit had no business wearing perfume while trying to surprise someone. Especially not one that distinctive. Great uncle Beladas had told her that more than once. Looked like it was time for a reminder.

Subtly she shifted Malwind under her pillow. The way the weight changed told her that Peirce, her other blade, was still lying across it. Good. Concentrating on the feel of the room, Tenesi let the awareness of the currents of magicka slowly reveal themselves to her. She could feel the gathering energies that Hekellah was attempting to subtly call. Subtly being a very generous exaggeration.

Biding her time breathing slowly, Tenesi waited.

At the moment when Hekellah was almost ready to call down her spell, Tenesi grabbed Pierce and rolled out of the bed, landing crouched at her shocked sister's feet. Behind her a miniature storm of lightning rained down on the bed she had just vacated.

Lunging up and forward, she slashed at her sister. Malwind sliced open a section of the younger dunmer's tunic and singed the cloth, and then Pierce caught the pouch at Hekellah's hip and flung it across the room to land in a finger basin. Another strike by Malwind singed off an inch of hair, another strike with Pierce slid through the shoulder of the tunic, opening a small slice on the girl's upper arm, and pinning her against the wall.

Wide-eyed, Hekellah let out a squeak much more suited to a Breton peasant than a dunmer noble.

"You wear too much perfume." Tenesi spoke conversationally, and then pulled her blade out of the wall where it had stuck over her sister's shoulder. "I've told you that before."

Hekellah swallowed her reaction. With some effort she kept her expression completely calm. After a moment she looked down at her tunic, and then glanced at the left side of her hair, which was now slightly uneven. "Really?" She said in an quietly aggrieved tone. "Was all that really necessary?"

_Nice recovery, sister._ Thought Tenesi to herself, though she would never have said it aloud.

Beyond them the door slammed open and a silver-haired altmer glanced around the room. His right hand crackled with summoned energies, and behind him peeked a pale clanfear-shaped daedra with crystaline hide. "Tenesi?" His voice was tightly controlled, and the urgency was obvious to Tenesi only because she knew him very well.

Tenesi turned to face him, and gave him the slight upward tilt of her mouth that said all was well, it not outright amusing. Her manner was formal but her eyes danced with affection and suppressed amusement.

He was already pristinely dressed in semi-formal robes. This told her that if he hadn't already done so, he probably had plans to visit the mages guide. She made a mental note to talk to him after his visit. However for now, introductions were in order.

"Hikiro Ni Cameire, may I present my younger sister Hekellah Faryon of House Telvanni, who has apparently just arrived in Davon's Watch." With the smallest of movements of her eyebrows, she indicated Roo, the summoned family spirit that still waited behind him.

He gave her a barely perceptible frown at the reference to Roo, and then focused on the startled sister.

"It is my great pleasure to have the opportunity to meet one of Lady Tenesi's family." His expression softened into courtly grace and taking the dunmer's hand he bowed over it. "Most delightful to meet you, sister-in-law."

Tenesi had a moment to appreciate the way Hekellah's expression softened. If there was anyone that Hikiro Ni could not charm pretty much instantly, she hadn't met them yet. Then she processed what he'd said. Sister-in-law.

Tenesi had not actually gotten around to informing her family of her having undergone the ritual of Mara. Much less that she'd done it with an altmer. She'd been waiting for the right time. Like say, several decades hence. After all, there was no sense rushing anything. She had mentioned that to Hikiro Ni. More than once.

Belatedly, it occured to her that He had not actually agreed.


End file.
